This past Friday before Christmas, I lit a candle and kept it burning constantly throughout the holiday weekend. I have not extinguished it because it is my reminder of those who are serving in Occupations right now, around our state, our country and our world. It is my reminder of all those around the globe who are standing up for what’s right, in spite of increasing aggression against them. It reminds me of our shared plight and that the 99% knows no borders and is as global as the corporatism we stand in defiance of.

I can’t help but think of the Eternal Flame that burns at JFK’s grave site. The dream it was intended to represent, the visionary spirit. President Kennedy is as fitting a martyr as any. He appears to have been our last bastion of hope against what has since been a non-stop, machine timed march toward allowing corporations and the 1% to rule through their politician proxies. Things might have been different had he not been murdered.

I have watched the candle’s flame flicker and dance in the gathering darkness and cannot avoid the irony embedded in the scene. While it seems there are far too few flames burning for freedom and in opposition to the theft of our liberties, our numbers are growing each day. Soon, the bright fires of righteousness will turn back the shadows that threaten now to swallow us up, to hide us, to silence us.

Each brave man, woman and child, willing to Occupy in the face of the forces that gather against them are now, and will ever be remembered in our history as the first to lay blocks in a wall of resistance against corporate rule via our corrupted systems. All of you who are Occupying are doing the rest of us a great service, as you are a representation of the rapid erosion and restriction of our rights and liberties that have been achieved in secrecy to throttle such a public outcry against what they are doing to us. You are the first of us, those in the mythological minority that we know by a different name:

The 99%.

It is for all of you that I burn this candle. For my friends in Occupy Detroit, who stood this week against the worst kind of atrocity, the elimination of our public libraries. To those who were arrested in defense of information and our right and access to it, I cannot say enough thank you’s. My family thanks you, as we use the resources at our public library and believe in the value it provides. To Ms. Emma Howland-Bolton, a personal thank you for all the work you are doing and the attention you have helped to bring this subject.

For my friends in Occupy KC, who have seen the mayor’s office insist the public pay to exercise their rights to free speech during their upcoming Death of Social Safety Net jazz funeral December 30th this week, I say, I will march with you. I will add my candle with yours to illuminate the insanity of defunding these programs when they are most needed. Government by the people and for the people….but I digress. The candle I burn is for the struggles you are having from lack of funding, but it is also in hopes of continuing to build on your positive relationship with the KCPD. Thank you to @gnuggitz for all your kind words and @loki8025 for all the late night sentry updates.

It is for my friends at Occupy Flint and Occupy Maine and Occupy Norfolk and Occupy Columbia, Mo. It is for all of you because what you are doing now, well, that’s for all of us.

Merry Christmas from us here at American Spring. Solidarity.

And Santa, if you’re listening, I’ll take world peace for Christmas…..or as a New Year’s Resolution if you think it might take a little longer than one night to deliver.